Alistair Martin

Matu Collins wrote:I'm not sure I'm keen on putting my exact location into a map. I love to show people around my place but I don't want random members of the public roaming around..

This is one of our frequently asked questions http://www.ripenear.me/faq#t5n41

Thanks Ryan!

We have a lot of cool ideas that growers on a commercial scale will like, and we will be getting feedback from our community and growers to learn what they feel is missing. If you've got something in mind that you think would be neat let me know. We're still a little way off, so it's not possible to say what will/won't make the final cut.

David Livingston wrote:Any chance getting this in French ?

We have plans to make the site multilingual/international. I can't give you a time frame for this just yet, but it's on our todo list.

Thanks for the reply and for clarifying Dale - much appreciated.

Dale Hodgins wrote:2. National search didn't reveal all Canadian users.

For performance reasons the map will only show a limited number of results at any one time. Not everyone has a browser/device capable of handling so much data. When searching for Canada the US displays too, so not many of the Canadian pins show, unfortunately. We'll check into it, though.

Dale Hodgins wrote:3. Most local searches will be fruitless until numbers increase. So, this one isn't a computer issue.

Yes, we're working on it. If you think of a good way to connect with more like minded people and share our message let me know.

@Chris Badgett, thanks for the kind words! I wish you all the best with Organic Life Guru too!

@John Polk, thanks for the welcome and help!

Matu Collins wrote:I signed up with no trouble at all. I haven't put any of my crops up yet but there's not much ripe right now. We've got sunchokes and parsnips in abundance on warm days.

Nothing in my area but I bet if I did some footwork I could get farmers and folks in my state to sign up.

Thanks for registering Matu! We have some poster designs that I'd be happy to forward to you if you'd find that helpful(?). We're all about being local on a global scale, so let me know if there's anything we can do to make it easier to get community of growers on board there. I think we can really shake up the food system and put it back in the hands of the people - that's the plan, anyway.

Oh, and Vanessa is spot on - you can add your produce before it's ripe and collect subscribers. See the video on our homepage and our FAQs for more info on this.

=Edit--- Lots of bugs to be ironed out. I tried to sign up and got this.

The page isn't redirecting properly. Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

I counted 26 U.S. users and 6 Canadian users. Half of Canada's users are on my island and one is 5 miles away. I didn't expect that. One listing in Toronto was a message letting people know that a large area of service berries in a park were ripe. When I first typed in Canada, no results were found. Individual province searches worked. The site will have to get many more users to make it useful.

I checked out many of the listings and none contained a review. I assume that few know about the site and that when someone does find out about it, they don't find a grower near them.

If you click on the cherries on Vancouver Island, a map will come up. Zoom out three times and you'll see the Nanaimo River near the bottom of the map. There I am.

Hi Vanessa & Dale,

I'm one of the Co-founders of RipeNearMe. Thanks for the post!

Just thought I'd respond here with some thoughts. Firstly, you're right about this particular bug. We found it occurred when a person with an account that wasn't yet validated (or brand new) attempted to send a message to another user. We've just fixed it and now registration is working without a hitch. When you say "Lots of bugs", though, I'm concerned that you might have found others? Please let me know if so and we'll get it fixed asap. We feel that they're few and far between now, so if you've found a lot we'd be particularly concerned. Part of the reason we're in Beta is to gather feedback from users to iron out bugs and also improve the features/usability, so feel free to drop us a line anytime (contact {at} ripenear.me).

The site itself is quite new, as Vanessa mentioned. Our launch was timed better for the southern hemisphere growing season, so we've had a much better uptake there - and also because we're based Down Under. Things should pick up in North America as we get closer to Spring, and we'll be investing a bit more energy in promotion there at the same time. It's great to hear that you found some listings nearby though! Maybe you can be the first to review the cherries?

One of the challenges of a community based site is that we need the community to add content. If you have excess to share, please consider adding it. As you correctly point out Dale, no content is discouraging, but the opposite is true also; the more content there is the more others are encouraged to share and connect. We do need many more users to make it useful, and so forums like this are a fantastic help.

Thanks again and happy growing!

Alistair